Activision Blizzard Blizzard Etertainment, Diablo 3 Deceptive and unjust business practices. Internet, Internet

1. The game was in development since 2001. There was a fallout with the employees of Blizzard north that forced the original developers to walk away from the company.

Can you show me the proof of this statement? Nothing I've read indicates the truth of this statement.


2. I started testing in 2008 as an alpha tester. The original concept and game was awesome. Jay Wilson took over and the entire game including story and mechanics which changed the game concept.

 I don't believe you. Every person that cries about one of blizzards games is always an "Alpha tester" I guess you worked for them then in order to get in on an alpha?

3. It appears you have very little knowledge in Marketing and Information technology. Lets discuss the authenticator. First this device wasn't mentioned to Diablo 3 players until AFTER the compromises began. The device used that blizzard calls "authenticator" is called a security token. These are really cheap. Wholesale you can get about 1000 at .25.  The fact you say that it cost you $6.50 is a blatant lie. Its around $20 because of shipping and handling. I'd also like to add that only the Mobile authenticator works with Diablo 3 not the dial-in keychain which you claim you purchased.

Really? can you give me a link to show me where you get a 1000 for 25 cents? I would like to buy some at that price. Also, 20$ for shipping? You are high. I just went to blizzard's website and went through the order process. Its $6.50 INCLUDING SHIPPING. Can you provide proof that it is 20$ with shipping? Their website does not reflect your claim. Also, I have the keychain. It works just fine for my copy of diablo 3. I purchased it 4 years ago for my world of warcraft account and its worked just fine. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. The mobile authenticator and the keychain authenticator work exactly the same. Maybe you are confusing them with the dial-in authenticator which is a completely different product (also free)

4. As for the evidence which PROVES the vulnerabilities in blizzard servers I posted the proof on the Blizzard forums only to get banned. I provided screen shots of vulnerabilities I found  Through the website and through their servers. I also posted where the bots used for the intrusions are being downloaded. I also posted my credentials as well. I have my Bachelors in computer science and worked in the IT field while I was in the Military. My knowledge of this field is vast. I've also emialed support with the same information with no reply.

Then post it here. Obviously you aren't concerned about it being in public or you wouldn't have posted it on their website. Show us the proof. Prove me wrong. Post your evidence here, blizzard has no power to have it removed from this website. NOTHING is ever removed from this website.

5. The auction house is a scam. Blizzard developer bashiok has stated "when the real money AH goes live you will see an increase of better loot." This is game mechanic manipulation. They have the power to make no items drop if they want. As for the PROFIT, blizzard made over a half a billion dollars in the first week of sales alone. They have made their money back and then some. I play plenty of games that do not require a monthly fee for servers. Have you checked the latency while you play? These are not new servers. Learn what a shard is.

So? Who CARES if its game mechanic manipulation? Did they ever, once, promise you that there would be no manipulation of loot drops? can you produce an agreement from blizzard stating they would never change loot drops? I know what a shard is. I'm no idiot myself. How do you know they aren't new servers? Again, show us the proof. You just have wild claims that you have made up yourself. Also, Where is your half a billion dollars in sales in the first week number coming from? That would require them to SELL 8.3 million copies of the game in the first week, which they did not. They sold 6.3 million copies the first week, of which about 1.5 million were free copies distributed to world of warcraft players like myself. I come up with about 300 million in sales. Now don't forget, the stores that sold them get their cut. The distibution companies get their cut. Oh yeah, the cost to ship and market the game too. That's gotta come out of that. Don't forget paying all the programmers for "12 years" of work. That's gotta come out of the cost too. Where is the money to pay for the servers again? That's why there's a real money auction house, so that blizzard can support the game going forward. 5 years from now when no one is buying a copy and blizzard still has the servers up, something has to pay for it. I would rather have a real money auction house than pay for a monthly fee. WOuldn't you?

6. Where was I ripped off?

In the booklet it states that the is a real money auction house. Even though I despise this it was advertised as working. It also stated there is 1v1 dueling. Neither of these exist as of right now. FALSE ADVERTISMENT

It has been delayed but will be released. I thought you hated the idea of the auction house to begin with? The booklet is not advertisement. If yuo think it is, go get a lawyer and let me know how it goes. Remember those terms of use you agreed to? They superceed that already out of date book. They have stated the real money auction house will be online soon. they will also have PvP working soon.

Ripped off - To exploit, swindle, cheat, or defraud

I was swindled out of $60 due to their amazing false marketing.

I still have not seen any examples of false marketing, as you claim. You can play the game just fine right now.

Blizzard blaming customers for security issues is no different than Americans paying for Car and bank companies poor business choices.

Who else should they blame? Is it blizzard's fault that some moron downloads a keylogger to his computer and gets hacked? What do you propose blizzard do to stop people from downloading viruses to their computers?

Still no ripoff here. AT least, not until this person can produce all this evidence he has.

 I wish to welcome Ashlee the newest want to be member of Team Rebutt, sorry Ash you have along way to go to meet the requirements of the mighty Team Rebutt .

4. As for the evidence which PROVES the vulnerabilities in blizzard servers I posted the proof on the Blizzard forums only to get banned. I provided screen shots of vulnerabilities I found....

If you have all of this proof then post it here, unlike other sites this site has a policy to not remove posts and I yet to hear of this site banning anyone.  

As long as it isn't proprietary or company confidential information that would be subject to various non-disclosure agreements you should have no problem with this.  If the legallity of what you have is questionnable then one has to wonder not only how you really got the information but what level do you play in all of this. 

As for the PROFIT, blizzard made over a half a billion dollars in the first week of sales alone.

- Forget the oil companies..apparently the on-line gaming community is where the real money is at.

1. The game was in development since 2001. There was a fallout with the employees of Blizzard north that forced the original developers to walk away from the company.

2. I started testing in 2008 as an alpha tester. The original concept and game was awesome. Jay Wilson took over and the entire game including story and mechanics which changed the game concept.

3. It appears you have very little knowledge in Marketing and Information technology. Lets discuss the authenticator. First this device wasn't mentioned to Diablo 3 players until AFTER the compromises began. The device used that blizzard calls "authenticator" is called a security token. These are really cheap. Wholesale you can get about 1000 at .25.  The fact you say that it cost you $6.50 is a blatant lie. Its around $20 because of shipping and handling. I'd also like to add that only the Mobile authenticator works with Diablo 3 not the dial-in keychain which you claim you purchased.

4. As for the evidence which PROVES the vulnerabilities in blizzard servers I posted the proof on the Blizzard forums only to get banned. I provided screen shots of vulnerabilities I found  Through the website and through their servers. I also posted where the bots used for the intrusions are being downloaded. I also posted my credentials as well. I have my Bachelors in computer science and worked in the IT field while I was in the Military. My knowledge of this field is vast. I've also emialed support with the same information with no reply.

5. The auction house is a scam. Blizzard developer bashiok has stated "when the real money AH goes live you will see an increase of better loot." This is game mechanic manipulation. They have the power to make no items drop if they want. As for the PROFIT, blizzard made over a half a billion dollars in the first week of sales alone. They have made their money back and then some. I play plenty of games that do not require a monthly fee for servers. Have you checked the latency while you play? These are not new servers. Learn what a shard is.

6. Where was I ripped off?

In the booklet it states that the is a real money auction house. Even though I despise this it was advertised as working. It also stated there is 1v1 dueling. Neither of these exist as of right now. FALSE ADVERTISMENT

Ripped off - To exploit, swindle, cheat, or defraud

I was swindled out of $60 due to their amazing false marketing.

Blizzard blaming customers for security issues is no different than Americans paying for Car and bank companies poor business choices.

Have you ever been through a game launch before on a game of this scale?

" On May 15 2012 Blizzard released the title Diablo 3 which has been the most anticipated game of all time. The game was in development for 12 years, beta tested for 2 years and the game still does not work as advertised. "

Its only been in development for 4 years and has been beta tested for less than a year. Exaggerate much?

"First lets talk about account security which is the number one issue for players. I'd like to mention blizzard staff does an excellent job at manipulating community mindset through lying. Upon launch hackers were already at work compromising accounts. Blizzard used these compromises to their advantage to make money off of mobile authenticators. The compromise is server side and they blamed the customer for them. Not only that they force you to either download a third party app on your phone which is just as easily compromised or spend 20 dollars on a device that does not work. Either way your account can still get compromised and blizzard refuses to acknowledge the truth of this matter which it's not the consumers fault blizzard online security failed it's customers. There is no indication anywhere in the box, on the box or in the book that we need an authenticator to stay safe."

The authenticator is $6.95 not 20 dollars and the device works great. I've had one for 4 years now, best 7$ I ever spent on account security. Blizzard doesn't make money off these things, they sell them at cost to the consumer. The Mobile app is free and does the same thing as the pay one. People that have these devices are not the ones getting hacked. Where is your evidence that these are easily hacked? What is blizzard supposed to do to get consumers to stop downloading viruses and keyloggers that compromise their account? Do you want then to buy you anti-virus software and make you scan your hard drive before you can play every time?

"Real money auction house is a scam and what the game is based entirely around. Blizzard community leader Bashiok has stated when the real money auction house goes live better loot will start dropping. This is game mechanic manipulation. I'd like to mention at this point that the Real Money auction house was a feature that came with the game. Unfortunately it didn't come with the game because there is no Real Money auctions going on. Blizzard also makes 15% of anything that sales whether virtual currency I.E. gold or real money currency."

How is it a scam? People stand to make a lot of money off the real money auction house once it goes live. of course blizzard is going to take a cut, would you rather they make their money off the real money auction house or charge you a monthly fee to pay for the servers you are playing their game on. It did come from the game, they just haven't activated it yet until the klinks are all worked out. Patience is a virtue.

"Upon launch which was 0000 PDT may 15 2012, blizzard servers failed every customer. Most people could not start playing until 0430. This was due to an SQL injection that occurred when launch happened. This injection was a breach in their security which allowed the hackers to view any and all diablo 3 accounts information. Blizzard denies all of this even though there is overwhelming evidence they are at fault. "

Oh noes, you mean you had to wait 4 whole hours at launch to play? Do you have any proof of your SQL injection theory? Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, they didn't anticipate the number of people that would buy the game and the mass number of logins crashed the login servers? They have admitted that they didn't anticipate the amount of players the game is getting and have been scrambling to get the hardware they need.  

"The game was made to make money, it's sole purpose is to make money. The blizzard staff are completely inept and disconnected from players. This behavior that I have listed is considered bad business practice. "

What other purpose does a video game have besides making money for the company? Of course its sole purpose was to make money for blizzard. They wouldn't be able to make video games unless they made a profit off them.

Where were you ripped off again?

"Oh look, once again a player telling us how the game should be designed lol"
 This was quoted from Blizzard staff Zarhym

 When a consumer earns their money and spends it on a product falsely advertised we have every right to voice our grievances. We are paying blizzard employees. Every single person that buys a blizzard product is an employer. The attitudes of blizzard employees represented on the forums is "we have your money and we will do what we want" 

I'd like to mention ONLY digital purchases are eligible for a full refund within 30 days of purchase date. You can do this by calling the number listed above.